Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Gift of God

Jonathan means gift of God and that is is exactly why he was given this name eight years ago today. After three miscarriages and plenty of heartache, I thought our family was complete - mom, dad, girl, boy.

Fortunately, I am not in total control and in the spring of 2000, I was surprised, excited and a bit frightened at the idea of being pregnant again. Besides, I had given all baby things away thinking it was better for other folks to use them than for them to just sit in the attic.

I remember having a conversation with Ken early on that March morning about his thoughts on our family increasing and something he said caused me to make a bee line to the drug store for a pregnancy test. I couldn't think about anything else, so with two little children in tow, I was off. I took the test as soon as I arrived home and let the little kids call Ken at work to tell him that his suspicions were correct - we were having another baby!

I won't lie - the pregnancy was long and emotional. There were many days I wondered if he would actually get here safely. I was very tired, but it was also a time of learning to trust in the God I said I believed in. It was so much easier to just talk about believing that God has a good plan even when things are hard than to actually walk through the hard stuff with a faith that says I believe. There were so many things to be worried about right down to the fact that my first two children arrived rather quickly when labor started, and now I lived thirty minutes from the hospital. I often wondered if we would make it there in time.

Jonathan arrived safely Thanksgiving weekend and we had plenty of time. All those items I had given away didn't matter as people loaned or gave us all that we needed. We did not have to purchase anything. Our friends and family brought so many meals, I didn't have to cook until after New Year's. It was amazing how every detail seemed to work out - God truly provided every thing we needed.So today as I stand in amazement of God's handiwork, I will remind my little pretender with the vivid imagination what an incredible gift from God he is.